I was thinking about this the other day. Raikkonen is one of my favourite drivers and I would love to see him back on the grid but Michael Schumacher has shown how difficult it can be coming back after a break, so if he does come back how do people think he will fare? Will it be a similar situation? Schumacher is incredibly dedicated, which is one thing Raikkonen’s detractors fault him for but I think it would be interesting to see.

He at least has been driving over the last two seasons and the regulations haven’t changed as drastically from ’09 to 2012 as they did from ’06 to 2010 but the Pirelli tyres will surely take a while to get used to (as Webber and Hamilton to an extent are showing). The Williams this year is a poor car but I could definitely see Kimi putting it in places it shouldn’t be, and beating fairly easily Maldonado/Barrichello/Sutil/another who ends up in the car next season.

I think he will struggle but not as much as Schumacher (assuming that Schumi has gotten slower). He shouldn’t have any trouble with Barrichello and I don’t see Maldonado being much of a challenge. Sutil on the other hand might be harder to beat if they end up in the same team. I’m not saying Adrian is a Tier 1 driver but I rate him as a “better” driver and might take time for Kimi to really show his pace compared to Adrian.

I think the fact that he’s younger and that the regs havn’t changed hugely since ’09 will help him a lot. Qualifying without race fuel will also play to his very strong one lap pace.
However I could see him struggling at the start of races with so much fuel on board, he would rarely have been used to that in his previous F1 career. Also whether or not his driving could accommodate nursing the Pirelli tyres would be interesting to see.

By racing in WRC and Nascar he’s had to adapt to vastly different tires and grip levels than F1. He can adapt to the pirellis and he could shine in qualifying. If Maldonado and Barrichello have been able to get the Williams to Q3 on the odd occasion this year, I’d expect Kimi to pull of the feat fairly often.

Will he come back and set F1 on fire? It remains to be seen. Does he have the potential to? Absolutely.

And I can’t think of any reason why the fans wouldn’t want to see another WDC on the grid, even if it’s in somewhat of a backmarker.

The only positive thing I can see if they really sign Kimi is, they would have got a relatively solid budget together. But without any inspiring engineers to take the car up the grid with fresh Ideas, taking some risks and attention to detail, it will just be showing how both Williams and Kimi are on their way out (I fear this is likely to happen).

If Williams can give a better car I think Kimi will be midfield at best. Shumi has shown it is difficult to come back and fair enough, Kimi has been racing but none of which on P-Zero’s. He won’t be worse than the current drivers they have anyway.

Two years ago, Raikkonen said that he was interested in competing in F1 only in a winning car. Williams definitely won’t have a winning car next year.

Raikkonen didn’t participate in one of the rallies this year because he didn’t want to travel. In F1, drivers need to travel even more as there are more rounds.

Raikkonen has never liked the ‘PR’ part of F1 but that hasn’t become less important since 2009. According to Joe Saward, one of the topics discussed in today’s meeting of the F1 Commision in Geneva is “the involvement of teams and drivers in more F1 promotional activities”.

I agree with Grits, I think Raikkonen doesn’t know what he is doing. His motivation for a comeback may not really be driven by lust for racing in F1.

I never fully understood why Raikkonen left F1 in the first place. But I understand that he was discouraged to continue because he didn’t really like the idea of leaving Ferrari (hence why he did not like the idea of moving into a slower team). Ferrari were desperate to offer seat to Alonso and best way for them to do that was the keep Massa.

If he does come back im sure he will do an ok job, but i doubt he will have the motivation or the patience to work on car development, testing, traveling etc etc..

It is hard to compare to Schumacher situation. Schumacher went up against Rosberg who is exceptionally quick, and there were lot of changes introduced to the cars since his retirement. But im certain Schumacher will be improving and he will not be leaving until he achieves some level of success …

I don’t think Raikkonen returning will be good for the sport. It’d be nice to see the BBC team say how there’ll be 6 champions on the grid for 2012, but I’m not sure I’d enjoy him being back as much as I enjoyed Schumi coming back..

Having said that, the interview with Kimi in the current issue of F1Racing mag is quite interesting, he apparently made enquiries for a seat at Red Bull (which I could imagine, and could be fun alongside Vettel) but the mag seemed to imply he’d try and get a seat for 2013 in a Red Bull (Webber’s time is up now..)

If he does go down that route, I think it’d be better to see him in a mid-field team so he can prove his worth to Red Bull, and so he can get used to the rule changes (DRS/Pirellis/Diffusers etc.)

Raikkonen seems to have his eye on Webber’s drive for 2013. If he does well in the Williams next year who’s to say he wouldn’t have a shout for it, a motivated Kimi Raikkonen is a match for anyone on the grid including Vettel, Alonso, Hamilton and on this season’s form Button.

He knows full well the Williams won’t be a title winning car next year but he needs to rebuild his reputation after ’08 and ’09. I’m not convinced Ferrari backed him very well in 2009 anyway and that’s what disillusioned him with the sport, over the second half of the year when Massa was injured he and Hamilton were the best drivers considering how poor their cars were at the start of the year, but they decided Alonso was the way forward.

I feel he definitely regrets leaving F1, the new surroundings of rallying and NASCAR weren’t as good as he imagined, or maybe it was more difficult or whatever. If the rumours at the time were true and Mclaren wanted him before Button then he must be kicking himself now though.